In building construction it is commonly needed to affix together various sheet materials which must be properly spaced apart from each other to achieve their intended function.
For example, it is desirable to ventilate an attic to equalize the attic temperature and pressure with that outside the building. This equalization inhibits moisture from condensing on insulation and wood roof materials, prevents build-up of ice dams, and reduces air-conditioning costs. One ventilating system is a roof ridge vent using a synthetic fiber matting, covered by asphalt cap shingles and fastened to the plywood roof sheathing, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,167,579. The overlying cap shingles are secured to the sheathing by nails passing through the matting, and a nail should only be driven to a depth where the shingle remains spaced apart from the sheathing sufficiently to prevent the shingle from being dimpled around the nail site and the resilient material from being too greatly compressed.
Another example is placing a layer of foam insulation between vinyl or aluminum siding panels and the outer wall sheathing. Nails are received in slots in the siding panels and extend through the insulation material into an underlying sheathing. Similar to the roof venting system, the siding panels must be secured a distance apart from the sheathing to prevent the siding panels from dimpling and the insulation material from being crushed.
Nails have previously been developed for installing sheets of drywall to properly space the head of the nail from the stud surface underlying the drywall. These nails have a fluted shank which ensures that the head of the nail does not penetrate too deeply into the drywall. The flute crushes through the drywall until it engages the stud, thus ensuring that the head of the nail does not penetrate too deeply into the drywall. U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,508 discloses such a fluted nail.
However, fluted nails of that type are not capable of cutting through resilient materials such as the synthetic fiber matting or the foam insulation described above, and would instead compress or crush the resilient matting or foam material. Furthermore, such nails are not designed to seal over the hole created by the passage of the fluted shank to prevent moisture penetration, nor would they allow the slotted siding panels to slide literally along the nail.